• The U.S. Census Bureau's 1995 report on poverty in the U.S., published in February 1999, estimates the percentage of people in poverty by state. The states with the highest percentages of people living in poverty are: Mississippi: 21.4 percent; Louisiana: 21.2 percent; District of Columbia: 20.8 percent; New Mexico: 19.9 percent; Texas: 18.5 percent; Arkansas: 18.2 percent; and Oklahoma: 18.2 percent.

• Each year the nation's 14.5 million poor children remain in poverty, the Children's Defense Fund estimates, the economy loses a staggering $130 billion in output, largely due to a loss in productivity from poor education. By age 5, children below the poverty line already score, on average, nine points less on IQ tests than their more affluent counterparts. Once they become older, poor kids are twice as likely to drop out of school than middle-class kids - and 11 times more likely than rich children.

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